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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248109">Balancing Act</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aistifcisi/pseuds/aistifcisi'>aistifcisi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Badgermoles, Basically LoK season 2 was taken out back and shot 15 times executioner style :), Dragons, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Not LoK Season 2 Compliant, One Shot, Order isn't all good and Chaos isn't all evil, Sky Bisons (Avatar), That literally goes against the entire concept of balance, maybe..., why is that not a tag?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:06:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,457</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25248109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aistifcisi/pseuds/aistifcisi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They were opposites and yet, also not. They knew what they were and they knew what they needed. They were the Great Spirits of Balance and they needed their namesake. <i>Needed</i> it for their sake, for their fellow spirits’ sake, for the mortals’ sake. Balance was priority and a necessity. And yet... they failed.</p><p>They failed, over and over and <i>over again</i>. As if they were merely copying the immortal cycle they were stuck in with each other and not trying, and trying, and <i>trying</i> to fulfill their duty to the world. They failed.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Raava &amp; Vaatu (Avatar), Raava &amp; Wan (Avatar), Vaatu &amp; Wan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Balancing Act</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Raava was order and Vaatu was chaos.</p><p>They were spirits of great power and they were individual, separate. When she was at the north, he would be found at the south. They had their motives and wants and capabilities; all different, all separate. They had been separate since their creation. This was how it always was, since the beginning. </p><p>Raava was light and Vaatu was darkness.</p><p>She was the force of positive emotions: of happiness and hope, love and affection. Such emotions were all consuming and addictive. They would be what mortals would live for. All it would take for these to manifest as obliviousness and naivety was for mortals to allow them to. It would only take a little while then, for a child to drown in their complete blind faith in the waters and a noble to declare war in their ignorance of what the world truly was.</p><p>He represented negative emotions: of despair and dread, hatred and apathy. These would kill on their own. They were greedy, wasting away any colour and desire one may have in their life, destroying mortals from the inside out. When the light would betray (and she always did), they were all that were left. They would show themselves then, as grief and catharsis. Mortals, the wise ones at least, would know their use then, and wonder how they could ever have thought to curse the darkness. Catharsis would heal the wounds and grief soothe the scars.</p><p>Vaatu would push her away and Raava would pull him toward.</p><p>They were opposites and yet, also not. They knew what they were and they knew what they needed. They were the Great Spirits of Balance and they needed their namesake. <i>Needed</i> it for their sake, for their fellow spirits’ sake, for the mortals’ sake. Balance was priority and a necessity. And yet... they failed.</p><p>They failed, over and over and <i>over again</i>. As if they were merely copying the immortal cycle they were stuck in with each other and not trying, and trying, and <i>trying</i> to fulfill their duty to the world. They failed.</p><p>Raava took control and civilization formed; societies of the giant and ancient lion turtles, communities of mortals relying on each other for survival. It was complete order and it was immutable. It was hierarchy. People were born and they all had their roles. The farmer, the priest, the soldier; the child who would die and the noble who would kill. Mortals had roles and they <i>were</i> their roles. They would not go against their designation, and the poor would starve and the rich thrive. It was order. This was Raava, alone.</p><p>Then, something shifted and it was all Vaatu’s to dictate, and so he did. The bottom of order’s food chain rebelled and fought and <i>won</i>. They were given their minds, their wills, their lives and their freedom by the ancients they once considered their homes. Their newly claimed liberation healed the wounds and their found families allowed for them to mourn their lost cities. They left and they survived, prospered even. They were happy and hopeful, but the world was darkness’ domain now. And light would always betray for her counterpart. Just like that, the fickle balance that had been kept by Vaatu, alone, broke, and with it wars did too. </p><p>They were wars of chaos (for wars of order existed, too), wars where there really were no sides, just a bunch of scared and traumatized mortals trying, and trying, and trying to find any semblance of a long lost balance (that, maybe, had never existed to begin with). They were times wherein mortals had decided to take responsibility of <i>their</i> duty, and that hurt more than anything else. It was their job to do, to bring balance to the world. Yet, they could not. The Great Spirits of Balance had failed. Then they allowed themselves to rest, to question, to think of a solution.</p><p>They sought out the one who had turned the tides: a mortal of the lion turtle of the flames. He had been a human of pure life, one born during a time of no heavenly bodies, a winter night of the new moon, with neither Tui nor Agni to guide him. He would have been powerful, as he would have learned to lead his own spirit to its liberation since before his birth. He would have contributed greatly to society, if only he were allowed to thrive. But, he had not been. He had been a poor orphan, practically worthless within Raava’s hierarchy. He was the first of the mortals to have defied the light’s order and embrace the darkness’ chaos. Taking the life of fire from the ancient, he had left and the people had followed. His story was spread by his warriors of the sun and soon, the three other ancients learned and the peoples of the remaining elements had left also. They sought him out.</p><p>They found him, his face gaunt with the realization that the world’s imbalance was his doing (even if it truly wasn’t). They wished to recruit him, for him to help them, as they could feel moreso than see his potential. And so he accepted their offer.</p><p>They asked for the help of the dragons, the true masters of the flames, for mortals weren’t supposed to have the life of the sparks, nor the qualities of the other elements, not really. The masters accepted and so he trained and he learned. He was a truly skilled bender and yet it would not be enough, the Great Spirits knew. They continued and they sought out the remaining lion turtles. The ancients, who had seen first hand how vicious imbalance truly was, offered their energy and the mortal accepted. For each element given he learned from the true masters. He flew with the bisons of the nomads, who had become nomads only because of the wars. He watched in the dead of night as Tui pushed and La pulled. He went underground into the tunnels of the badger moles, and hid his eyes behind cloth to truly understand their teachings. Then, he was ready.</p><p>They were ready, both he and the Great Spirits. Raava chose their first target of the wars, for she was order; tactical and political. Vaatu planned their speech to the mortals, for he was chaos; sympathetic and social. Wan was to be the enforcer of it all, for the Great Spirits of Balance had made their choice and he would be their avatar; light and darkness would be separate no more.</p><p>It was the nomansland between the rocks and the flames. Avatar Wan stood in the middle, the Great Spirits circling him. All the sides (as there weren’t simply two, for these were wars of chaos) had come to a standstill; watching and waiting.</p><p>Vaatu did not push and Raava no longer pulled. Black and white mixed to form shades of grey, because the Great Spirits had understood now. There had to be balance, which neither could provide without the other to guide. The mixing of the colours was orderly, simply based on a palette, but the colours themselves were chaotic, some invisible to the mortal eye and others indistinguishable from one another though they were different colours.</p><p>Wan accepted them as one, for that was what they were now, him becoming their avatar and them becoming his spirit. He and they were one, very much the same way <i>they</i> had become so. He and they would remain one. He and they would ensure the balance of the world, even after this lifetime. Wan was no longer a mortal, not completely, and yet, he was still nonetheless a human. What he was now, was the Avatar and he would end the wars.</p><p>And then, he was bending, a master of all four elements. The Avatar Spirit rose within him and his eyes turned a faint, almost not there light blue, practically a white lost within his irises. This was Raava, the order of the Avatar, and she was protecting him, for a great energy was threatening to escape and tear him apart. This energy was Vaatu, the chaos of the Avatar, and he was unleashing himself, for he was a force of rage and freedom. They had begun pushing and pulling again, and Vaatu was trying to escape, not because he wanted to, but because he was dictated to by his very nature. Raava herself was dictated to contain him by her nature. And so, the Avatar Spirit was at last balanced and they would ensure that the world was just like them. It was their duty and it was Wan’s duty now, too.</p><p>The Avatar would restore balance to the world.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TL;DR: I don't like Legend of Korra, Season 2. Sorry. Also, I'm obsessed with italics.</p><p>EDIT: Please watch this video by Hello Future Me, it's so good and it addresses almost all the problems I had with LoK season 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1_SDy1nlbM<br/>Also edited some of the wording in the fic, nothing much though.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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